Pvt., 1st West Virginia Light Artillery
GAR – Buell Post 178, Ohio
1834-1904
(Philip) Smith Miner was born 23 DEC 1834. His parents, John and Elizabeth Prudence Reynolds Miner were from Delaware and already had two children, (Robert) Wesley and Lydia Jane by the time they migrated to Ohio. Smith was the first child born in Ohio and would soon be followed by other Miner children, Catherine, Elizabeth, John N., Sarah, and Adna. Smith was born in Monroe County Ohio but by 1850 the family had permanently settled in neighboring Washington County in the city of Marietta. Marietta is a picturesque city in Southeastern Ohio on the Ohio and Muskingham Rivers.
In 1855, Philip Smith Miner married Augusta Elizabeth Koon. By the time the Civil War started Smith and Augusta had three children, Martha Ellen, Samuel, and John.
On September 1, 1861, Smith and his two brothers (one older named Wesley and one younger named John N., enlisted in the Union Army in Buell’s battery First West Virginia Light Artillery.
Smith Miner was wounded on May 2, 1863, during the Battle of Chancellorsville (Virginia) as he worked to pull a wagon out of the mud. He served for almost 4 years and was discharged at the end of the Civil War in Wheeling , West Virginia (another “river town” about 100 miles from Marietta) on June 28, 1865.
He was employed at the Marietta Chair Company for over 40 years. He was a charter member of the Buell Post #178 G. A. R. and served over the years as Chaplain, Vice Commander and several times as their Commander. Two of the great accomplishments of his life were to oversee a G. A. R. encampment near Marietta in 1903 and also to serve as Staff Commander of the G.A.R. for the Department of Ohio. He died 23 JUL 1904. He is buried alongside his wife, Augusta, in Oak Grove Cemetery, Marietta, Ohio.
